Spike & Mike's 1999 Classic Festival of Animation

This is Spike and Mike's other animation festival, the squiggly, neurotic Dr. Katz to Sick and Twisted's Cartman. Of the 14 animated shorts in the 90-minute program, a whopping 12 are holdovers from last year's festival -- not a good sign for the cartoon crowd's cutting edge. But there's one real star here: 23-year-old Don Hertzfeldt, who says more about the trials of modern romance with a few minutes of his maladjusted stick figures in "Lily and Jim" and the gruesome, gleefully puerile "Ah L'Amour" than, say, Kevin Smith did in all of Chasing Amy. Beyond Hertzfeldt's lo-fi, distinctly American aesthetic, Spike and Mike bring us a myriad of other styles, including kitschy European noir and more wacky clay capers from the British creators of Wallace and Gromit. Classic Festival mainstay Bill Plympton is absent this time, so the show takes on more of a Disney look with the showcase "Geri's Game," a bright and colorful Oscar winner about an old man who plays chess against himself. Sure, "Geri's Game" is little more than eye candy, but with its stunning Toy Story graphics and understated drama, it beats out MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch any day. At the Coolidge Corner through April 29.

-- Sean Richardson